


Sandcastles

by kisahawklin



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Artificial Intelligence, M/M, Virtual Reality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-28
Updated: 2009-06-28
Packaged: 2017-10-05 16:38:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/43784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kisahawklin/pseuds/kisahawklin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/89986">Castles in the Air</a> by , who had a lovely idea and let me play in her sandbox. Missing... erm, well, scene... from 4.20, Last Man.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sandcastles

**Author's Note:**

  * For [silverraven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverraven/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Castles in the Air](https://archiveofourown.org/works/89986) by [silverraven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverraven/pseuds/silverraven). 



"Good luck, John," Rodney said, and the cold swept over him from behind as his cells were freeze dried in stasis.

He waited.

Somehow he hadn't expected it to feel like... well, _anything_, much less this vague awareness of himself, like a brain in a jar. Maybe it took time to shut down his brain; it was more complicated than the rest of his body.

_John._

Rodney's voice felt like a whisper - no, more intimate than that, a not-sound that slithered into John's awareness and hung there like an insubstantial mist. Creepy. At least he wasn't alone in here - that was a small relief. It was a little strange how familiar Rodney'd gotten - the whole 'John' thing was disconcerting. It might have been normal for Rodney, who'd been fixating on John's rescue for years, but it was weird for John, who'd just left McKay behind in the mess, bitching about 'Sheppard's latest conquest' on M2C-339.

_John?_ the voice asked.

John realized it couldn't read his thoughts. How did he talk without a mouth? He didn't think about it too hard, just said, _Yeah?_

_Oh, thank goodness._ John felt it - an echo of Rodney audibly breathing a sigh of relief.

_What's going on?_ John asked, and okay, it was a little weird to think of this as talking, but it felt the same on his end. Not quite the same on the receiving end of Rodney's half of the conversation, but it was becoming more normal and less creepy every time Rodney 'spoke.'

_I built the VR into the system, like I said I would for Carson._ There's a pause, and John has a flash of an image, of Rodney standing forward on the balls of his feet, deciding whether or not to say something. _I wasn't sure if you'd want it, so I built in a failsafe. You can shut everything down and go into non-conscious stasis if you'd rather._

John thought about it. He didn't think it would have been too bad to be frozen and unconscious all at once, but now that he was here, it seemed a little too much like death to slip into unconsciousness by choice, separate from his body. _No,_ John said carefully, controlling the welling fear that felt like a pool of acid under his consciousness. _VR is good. What scenarios have you got?_ He tried to imagine what Rodney would want to do in a virtual space - or what he thought John might want to do in a virtual space - and came up blank.

_Whatever you want_, Rodney said, and John was at a loss. Whatever he wanted? How was he supposed to narrow down everything in the entire universe to a single scenario? How was he supposed to create a world, make things...

Rodney appeared, his non-aged face only, in the darkness. _Rodney?_ John thought.

The Rodney in front of him didn't move, but the voice in his head said, _Very good, John. Just keep thinking about what you want, and it'll show up. It'll be good for your concentration, too,_ Rodney said, and John could feel the accompanying snicker bounce around him like a car going over a bumpy road.

"What about getting out of here when it's time?" John asked, and actually hearing his own voice made him realize he'd created himself a body. A once-over confirmed that it was his regular old forty-something body, and he closed his eyes and remembered what it felt like to be seventeen - invincible and free, everything working the way he wanted it to, no worries about that damn ligament in his knee.

_I'll set an alarm. And I've made time here move slowly compared to outside. As slowly as I could manage - so you've got about sixty years to live out whatever you want._

Sixty years? "Jesus, Rodney, might have let a guy know that before he started to world-build." They were at a carnival now - the giant ferris wheel dominating the landscape. Rodney was still just a face - John didn't have a clue how he looked when he was seventeen, and he wasn't about to ask the hologram.

_Sandy blonde, wavy hair, slight build, a little lanky,_ Rodney said, amusement bright in the thought-voice. _Unless you're going to make me stay old._

"Why don't you create yourself?" John asked, and then wondered if it was weird that he was planning to spend sixty years with the simulacrum of his best friend - who had died almost fifty thousand years ago.

_I can't stay,_ Rodney answered. _I have to keep an eye on you and Atlantis and the exploding star and -_

"Yeah, yeah," John said, almost relieved not to have a witness. He did his best to imagine Rodney with the details the hologram had given. He was beautiful, so young and untouched by misery, and John hoped he had even a little bit of it right, because thinking of Rodney like this made his chest feel like it might implode from the way he couldn't seem to get air into his lungs. "So this Rodney is a copy of a copy?"

_No,_ Rodney answered, though he seemed further and further away as the sounds and smells of the carnival started to overwhelm John's senses. _He's your impression of Rodney. If you make him independent enough, he'll take on reactions of his own, but if you just tow him along, he'll do whatever you want him to do._

"Doesn't sound very Rodney-like," John said, but he'd already grabbed Rodney's sleeve and pulled him toward the ticket booth, where the girl - Aimee Snyder, his junior high crush - handed him a bundle of tickets that took two hands to hold. He gave half to Rodney and dragged him to the ferris wheel, his internal Rodney-monologue coming out of the young Rodney's mouth.

"You can stop pulling me around like a dog," Rodney said, yanking his sleeve out of John's grip. "I can walk without assistance, you know."

John turned around, walking backwards in front of Rodney as he watched the boy wave his tickets around. "I don't see what's so appealing about rickety old amusement park rides that take you high enough off the ground that you'd crush all your internal organs if you fell."

"You'll see," John said, and twined his fingers in Rodney's. "Let's go."


End file.
